Search: “cop”

When I was in Canada I got introduced to Poutine and ever since its been a favorite dish of mine every time I visit Montreal. Around a year ago I found out New York Fries had opened up in Kuwait so I went to check it out because I knew NYF from Canada and they used to have Poutine. NYF had opened up next to Souk Salmiya and my first experience was a mess. Firstly it turned out they were called New York Friez not Fries meaning they were just copying the name and look of the original franchise. Secondly although they did have poutine on the menu they couldn’t make it right. Poutine is french fries topped with cheese curds and brown gravy but I got served french fries with chili and cheese. According to them it was because they had run out of gravy. I was like fine but you should have told instead of trying to pass me chili cheese fries as poutine.

Anyway that was the last time I went to them until today. I was meeting up with Nibaq near Johnny Rockets Salmiya and I noticed New York Friez had opened up right behind them. I was like let me give them another chance. I go in and ask the waitress if they have poutine, she was like yes and she showed it to me on the menu. I tell her great can I have one. Then I was like wait, how do you make your poutine, whats in it? She was like chili and cheese and fries. I was like thats not poutine, poutine is cheese, gravy and fries. She went to the back asked the cook and came back and told me no poutine is chili, cheese and fries. I was like no thanks and walked out.

Things like this piss me off. If you look at the picture I took from their menu you will notice they can’t even spell poutine right. In UAE they have the official New York Fries but sadly they don’t have poutine on the menu. But at least there they don’t try passing chili cheese fries as poutine to their customers.

Here is info on poutine at Wikipedia. [Link]

Just found this online store called Lo3baty which turned out is located in Kuwait. They aren’t selling much just one product, a radio controlled helicopter. Looks cool and its cheap but I am guessing its tiny. I emailed the owner asking if he would send me one so I could review, haven’t gotten a reply yet. [Link]

note: I don’t think its the same Lo3baty as My Toy located in Muthana. The reason is if it was the same I would think they would atleast have their contact numbers and shop address on the site. I also did a whois on the domain name and the information there is fake. If it was the same My Toy as Muthana they would have had the correct whois info. I think this site is just someone taking advantage of the Lo3baty name but isn’t actually connected to the real Lo3baty in Muthana.

I live in Salmiya, Salam Mubarek Street. The “old” Salmiya. I live right on the main shopping street and have been living on this street for most of my life.

Pre 1990 I was living in the building that had A&W, after 1990 I moved to the building across the street from it and thats where I have been living ever since. As you can imagine, I know the street very well. How well?

I remember The New Super Market before it closed down, I remember when Dairy Queen was open here and then shut down and Jashanmal opened instead. I remember buying my Thermos metal lunch box with the Dukes of Hazzard picture on it from there. I remember the night A&W opened with Mister Donuts right next to it. I remember when Majda el Roumi the famous singer came to open a perfume store right across the street from my building. I remember Hungry Bunny, I remember how after they renovated a cookie store opened inside it which had the best chocolate chunk cookies ever. I also remember the sad day when that cookie area inside got closed down.

I remember the high end stores like Channel, Versace and Cartier. It was a high end street and Rolex and Mercedes are still open here today serving as a reminder to what was once a beautiful street. I remember when Kids R Us opened and I remember what was there before it opened and after it closed. I remember the most popular music stores of their time, Soul II Soul, Bells and Swan Lake. I remember buying my original copy of Windows 95 from Computer World, I remember the small video game store on the ground floor of the same building, he had a NeoGeo in the display and I used to watch the Samurai Showdown demo play while I gazed through the glass hoping to own the system one day. I got my first Swatch from Fay stationary, I remember getting my Peter and Jane books from Family Bookshop. Fay shutdown, Family Bookshop is surprisingly still open.

Well my Salmiya isn’t what it used to be. All the upper scale stores shut down and everyones attention moved up to the Sultan Center area. All thats left here are low end stores all selling the same shit. The whole street has turned into a garbage dump. The sidewalk tiles are damaged, the trees look unhealthy, and the worst thing of all, Salmiya is slowly slowly losing its soul.

I was taking a late night walk just a while ago and I noticed the building that housed Swan Lake was going to get demolished. Thats when I realized I need to do something.

Why do old buildings get demolished and not refurbished? Salmiya (and Kuwait even) would look so much nicer if the old buildings were just redone up. Look at what was done with Beirut. They could have demolished everything and sprung up modern glass buildings but instead they decided to keep Beirut’s soul intact. Why can’t that be done here? My Salmiya really has a lot of history, how many other shopping streets in Kuwait can even begin to compare. No other has sidewalks wider then here nor is any other street located in such a good location. No other street has as much history! The Swan Lake building has a style, it can be cleaned up, updated and reopened but instead its going to get demolished and replaced by a cheap ass low end tiny crappy wannabe mall.

I want to be elected as the mayor of Salmiya. I would clean it up, repaint it, re-tile it and revive it. I don’t know who the mayor is now (if there is even such a position here in Kuwait) but I do know that he can’t be a true Salmiya dweller or else he wouldn’t let it die and rot like this. Vote for me, I won’t let everyone down.

I was in Hawalli yesterday when I decided to pass by the store Best Buy Kuwait (not official Best Buy just a copy). Turns out they had the Sony UMPC on display. I had only seen it before online so it was cool seeing it in person. Its super tiny and I really wish Apple would come up with something like it. They were selling it for KD699. [Link]

I just came back from riding my bike around Salmiya. What a big difference from last week. Last week it felt the bike was in control while this week I was in control.

My ride tonight was really fun and I didn’t want to come back home. I took the bike for a cruise around old Salmiya and then got onto Amman Street where there was a hand full of cars for me to maneuver around, I wanted to get a feel of riding around cars and I managed to do a bit of that. I then drove back and fort around my neighborhood a few times but then decided to come back home. I didn’t want to but I don’t have my license yet and didn’t want to get stopped by a cop which I doubt would have happened since it was around 6:15PM and the streets were nearly empty.

Surprisingly the biggest challenge for me tonight was getting used to the different seating position. The bike I have been riding all week in my lessons is a lot taller and the seating position is more upright, my Ducati on the other hand is much more lower and the seating position is tilted to the front, sports-bike like. That was my only issue tonight which means I think I am ready to get my riding license and start legally riding in public. I can’t wait!

My driving license is expiring in a few days, so on Sunday I passed by the Hawally Traffic Department in Jabriya. Regular readers might remember I had passed by the same place two weeks earlier when getting my motorbike learners permit. So once again I got my papers typed out in the typing room and then headed towards window #1.

When I got there it turned out to be the same person who had given me trouble the last time. Previously when I went to get my riding learners permit he had told me to come back the next day just like that for no reason. In the end a nice high ranking officer helped me and Nat out and I was able to get the paper work done in the same day. Anyway I went up to him with all my papers this time, he looked at them and then gave them back and told me to come back in the evening. I was like why? He was like from 4 to 7pm its for renewals. I was like fine whatever and left. On my way out I saw the nice cop from last time standing not doing anything. I was like cool, he will help me out again.

I go up to the high ranking cop and go hey remember me? Me and my wife came here 2 weeks ago and you helped us out and stuff. He told coldly replied no, and then rudely turned around and walked away. I was like thinking to myself what the fuck just happened here? This guy was like super friendly to us last time and he was kidding around with Nat and he was telling her about the dangers of riding and how he wouldn’t advise her to ride and stuff and then he went and finished up all our papers. Now its like he never met me before. I was like doesn’t matter, whatever, I followed the cop back to his office the whole time going excuse me in Arabic wanting him to turn around. Finally just before he got into his office he turned and was like what? I was like I want to renew my papers but that guy said I should come in the evening. He told me then come in the evening and walked away. I was like fuck it and left the place.

Tonight I passed by at 6:30pm to finish up my papers. I go in and the place was empty except for 2 guys sitting next to each other at 2 adjacent windows. I go up to one guy and without saying a word I give him my papers. Since my papers say I am Canadian I figured I would get better treatment like that, and it works most of the time. The guy signs my papers and places a stamp then the guy next to him tells him in Arabic “Tell him to come back tomorrow”. The guy continues to sign the papers then hands them back to me and tells me come back tomorrow. So I replied back in Arabic why? I came already before and you told me come back between 4 and 7, now I am here you are telling me come back tomorrow. The guy was like yes, no one is here now come back tomorrow at 5. I was like yeah buy I have work. He is like I finished everything for you, all you need to do is come back tomorrow have your picture taken here and get your license. I was like ok why can’t I do that now? He was like come back tomorrow.

So with no chance of reasoning with the guy and no wasta available I had to leave the place without getting my driving license renewed. Now I need to go back for the third fucking time just to get my license renewed. Three visits just for a renewel!

Someone of you might have read yesterday in the news about the artist Banksy and how he smuggled 500 doctored copies of Paris Hilton’s debut album into music stores throughout the UK, where they ended up getting sold without the shops’ knowledge. Well Stereogum has a video showing how Banksy smuggled the CDs into the shop. Check it out. [Link]

Here is also a photoset on Flickr of the doctored copies of Hiltons CD. [Link]

Today morning I went with Nat and the mandoob from TriStar to get our motorbike learners permit. I don’t know what mandoob is in English, but he is basically the guy who helps out with government paperwork. Todays experience like most government related work was exhausting, and the terrible humid weather didn’t help.

I picked up the mandoob at 9:30 and we headed to the Hawlly Traffic Department located in Jabriya. First place we went to inside was the typing room, there you give some guys your documents and for 1KD they fill out the forms for you on the computer and then print them out. Once we got the forms we headed into another much larger room filled with chairs and numbered booths. We headed to the very far end where we waited inline to get our papers signed by a high ranking police officer. This guy was very nice, he took a look at Nats form and he was like in English “you want to drive bicycle?” she was like yeah I want to ride a motorbike. He then proceeded to explain to her how driving in Kuwait is not easy and that if you are in a car its really dangerous so you can imagine how dangerous riding a bike is. He was like I could sign this paper for you if you want but I wouldn’t recommend it, she told him sign it please and he did. After that he told us we needed to go to Qurtoba to get an eye test so we left the place and headed there.

Once we got to Qurtoba I was worried I would fail the eye test. My vision isn’t perfect, I wear glasses when I am in front of the computer but I should be wearing them the whole time. Nat also has glasses which she wears in front of the computer and TV so she was worried she would fail too. So we go into the building and give in our forms and wait for our turn. 5 minutes later they call Nats name and she goes in for the test. A minute later she comes out telling me she passed although she made a mistake, her score was 24/6 for her left eye and 6/6 for her right. They called my name next and I went in. I don’t think I have seen an older eye test setup before. You sit in an old wooden school chair on one side of a room with a tall white plastic lamp behind you with the letters stuck onto it. You look ahead into a mirror stuck on the wall, cover an eye and read out the letters. It was really easy since they let me read out the big sized letters so I aced it with a score of 6/6 for both eyes. They signed the papers and we headed back to Hawally.

The weather was incredibly hot and humid and traffic was a bitch but we got to the traffic department and went back into the big room again back to the nice high ranking cop. He looked at the papers and told us to go to counter number 1. I get to counter 1 show him my papers only to have them rejected. The guy told me because I got my eye test today I needed to come back tomorrow to get the learners permit. I told him why do I have to do that, can’t I just get the permit done today? He was like come back tomorrow. So we were leaving the place when the high ranking cop asks us if we were done. I told him what the guy at counter 1 told us, he seemed irritated at the guy and took out some stamps from his pocket and stamped and signed out papers. He told us we needed to get a 10KD postage stamp and head over to counter 7. We got the stamps and headed to counter 7 where a guy took all our papers and filled them into the computer. He then told us to go get our pictures taken at the far end of the room.

There was a young woman sitting in a small room with a computer, a scanner and a small Canon digital camera attached to a cheap tripod. She told us to sit on the chair in front of the camera and she took our pictures. She then sent us back to counter 7. We got there and the guy started printing out our learners permit on his HP color laser printer. Although all the equipment they were using were off the shelf consumer electronics it was still cool that they were doing this. Finally the guy sent us to office 20, yes office, thats where the highest ranking official is located, we gave him our freshly printed learners permit and he signed it and we were done.

The whole process took around 2 hours and cost us KD11 per person. I am not sure but I am guessing this is the same process for getting cars learner permit. Below you will find some helpful information like papers needed and google map of the locations.

Papers needed for motorbike learners permit:
– 2 photographs, 3×4
– Work permit copy
– Passport copy (picture and visa page)
– Civil ID copy
– Driving license copy (if you dont have it then I believe you are required to do a medical test)

Location Maps:
– Hawally Traffic Department
– Qurtoba eye test place

Holla started work today at my agency. Regular readers might at one point or another read his “colorful” comments on the blog or maybe his posts in the forum. I met him in person a few weeks ago and I found out he was actually a copywriter. Since I had been looking for a copywriter to partner up with at work, he ended up applying here and getting the job. We are like Ponch and Jon from CHiPs except Holla is still missing a bike.

So its been like 3 months now since I got my Motorola V3x. People ask me what I think about the phone and its hard to give them a direct answer. I personally love the phone but I don’t understand why. There are so many things that are wrong with it I don’t know why I haven’t gotten rid of it yet.

The phone is stupid. When I first got the phone and I tried sending a picture via bluetooth I couldn’t get it to work. I would select the image, click on “options” and then “send to” but it would only give me the option to send by MMS. I was like what the fuck is this crap and I just left it at that. Then one day I was telling a friend of mine who also owns a Motorola about how I can’t send pictures with bluetooth and he tells me I can. Basically what you have to do is select the image, click on “options” then click on “manage” and then click on “copy” and then choose the bluetooth device you want to send the picture to. I was like shocked, what idiot came up with this incredibly unnatural method of sending a picture by bluetooth? By default if people want to send a picture to another phone they will click on “send” not “manage” then “copy”.

The phone is riddled with strange shit like that. Sending an SMS is a pain because the T9 dictionary keeps forgetting words I teach it. The word “fuck” which I use a lot never even gets saved in the dictionary for some unknown reason. Other words, mostly names of people I know seem to be forgotten by the dictionary after a certain amount of time. Its just really weird.

The worst thing has to be that sometimes people on the other end of the line don’t hear me clearly. People have reported strange beeping sounds, crackles and white noise. It doesn’t happen when I am using the 3G network but sometimes when the 3G signal is low the phone swaps to the regular 2G and thats when the problems occur. I heard a firmware update solves this issue but I haven’t tried it.

With all this unlogical and unexplainable issues I still love the phone. Its fast, I hate it when machines can’t catch up to my needs. With the V3x in the 3 months I have owned the phone not once did I have to wait a single second for it to “think” or “act”. Everything is instant from canceling a call, to redialing, to exiting and entering menus. Never a lag, never a hiccup. The phone also has some nice features like if I don’t read a message or view a missed call, the phone vibrates and beeps once every 5 (or could be 10) minutes. The phone is also customizable, I can move menus around and assign every single button on the phone to perform an action different then what it was supposed to do. Its small little things like that which makes this phone a pleasure to use.

Overall though I wouldn’t recommend this phone to anyone, I wouldn’t recommend Motorola at all not just this phone. I love it and I am still not fully sure why, I mean it could be just because I think the phone looks cool but in general most people should hate it.

I love the way how Apple always manages to find a cool way of attacking Microsoft. Tonight is the Worldwide Developers Conference where Apple will be introducing some new products and someone managed to take a picture of a banner for the new Mac OS which has the headline “Introducing Vista 2.0”. If you didn’t get what it means its basically taking a shot at the upcoming Microsoft Vista (the new Windows) which is already more then 2 years late. Basically the poster is saying that OSX (Macs operating system) is already way more advanced then Vista. [Link]

update: another banner reads “Redmond has its own cat. A copycat.”

I was watching a movie at home killing time since Nats plane was going to arrive at 11:15PM when I decide to take a break and check my email. I also decide to see if there was any change in Nats flight so I checked Kuwait-Airport.com.kw and to my surprise it said Nats plane was arriving 40 minutes early and at 10:35, it was 10:25!

So I quickly put my jeans on, I stayed in my PJ tshirt, quickly ran down with Geo to walk him and then took the BMW to the airport cuz I knew I had to get there FAST. After driving like a mother fucking maniac I arrived at the airport at 10:45. I quickly ran up to the arrival board and it turns out Nats flight was delayed 15 minutes and was going to arrive at 11:30PM. I was like WTF!? Anyway Nibaq was there paying his MTC bill so now I am with him. I am writing this email from the Kinkos Internet Cafe since I left my laptop at home. Its 11:45PM now and Nats flight should have arrived so I need to go check it. The airport is packed.

Update: Its 1AM and we just got back home. We would have been back sooner but for some unknown reason the cops decided to setup a check point on the 4th ring road tonight. It took us 30 minutes to cross a distance of 50 meters.

Some guy took a Nintendo Wii (a mockup) and took pictures of it next to everything. By everything I mean fridge, stove, Atari, telescope, toilet and just a ton of more random objects. Pretty weird.. but cool. [Link]

… in ASCII!!!! This is the coolest geekiest thing ever.

telnet diego.ascii-wm.net 2006

For Mac users just open up Terminal (located under applications/utilites) and copy paste the above command.

[Link]

Fuzz a fellow blogger is selling his car. Its a 1970 Mercury Cougar, here are some details:

Engine- 7.2 Litre V8
Automatic Transmission
Air Conditioning
AM/FM Radio
Cassette
Automatic Convertible Top
Original Hub Caps
Power Brakes
Power Steering
Radial Tires
Seatbelts
Vinyl Interior
Numbers are Matching

The engine and transmission have been rebuilt by Edelbrock himself in Illinois, USA. Very nice original car with lots of options, has front power disc brakes, have copy of bill of sale, new exhaust, power top & headlight covers work properly.

The only 1970 Cougar in Kuwait. Interior needs minor work, some stiching. This sort of interior job is available in Kuwait and the cost is minimal.

Price – KD8,000
A test drive is possible and can be scheduled.
For further inquiries call 9185054 or send an email to
[email protected].

Fore more pictures click [Here]